Rhodes Island - Greece
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Tuesday - April 26 ...The Things you rely on for life
If you are a recreational or even professional pilot then this is one of them.
And being the former I spent a large part of today embracing it.
The Garmin G2000 glass cockpit.
A nifty piece of kit this glass screen tells you all you need to know about where you are, how the engine is doing, where you are going, how far you have come, how far you have to go, how much fuel you have, how much fuel you will have by journey's end at current consumption and a whole lot more.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Monday - April 25
You know you are getting older when you spend a second consecutive day of the Easter break visiting historic stately homes. In years gone by surely there would have been a sporting event thrown in with ridiculously large amounts of alcohol consumed. Possibly even two such days and a third if you were really lucky or young. At the very least a visit to a pub.
But I will give England this - they do a good home. This one is Syon park which lies a leisurely 5 min drive from where I reside. Home to the Duke of Northumberland who actually physically resides there. I had a question that no one seemed capable of answering. If he is the Duke of Northumberland what is he doing with his family home in London and not Northumberland? The best answer put forth was a return question. '' Well the Prince of Wales doesn't live in Wales does he? ''
Fair point .
http://www.syonpark.co.uk/
Now.
99.99% of the conservatories I have seen in this country are white PVC naff looking attachments usually tacked on as a cheap extension to someones house who can't afford a larger home. 99.99% of the time these conservatories look out onto a garden the size of a small Tibetan saddle rug and are used more times by the house cat to pee in than they are by the owners.
The Duke of Northumberland clearly falls outside of the above percentile. An impressive glass conservatory with equally impressive gardens.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Sunday - April 24
What to do on a glorious London Easter Sunday?
Take a boat ride up the Thames to Hampton Court Palace of course...
Pass by what looked like an exciting and thrill packed dinghy race along the way
The waters threatening to be so treacherous this one resorted to wearing a helmet !
History on the doorstep
With accompanying gardens and architecture
Saturday - April 23 - St George's Day - England
Thames River at Richmond bridge - 7.58 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George's_Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George's_Day
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Friday - April 22
Thames tow path - 1.36 pm . 17 mile return bike ride.
A picnic below a sun umbrella.
Thursday - April 21
M25 Westbound - 2.47pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M25_motorway
A nondescript and poorly constructed photo actually tells a story. Dull for many but it got me thinking.
So there I was. Driving back from Cambridge after another aborted attempt at flying even though the skies were seemingly clear and it was hovering near 25 degrees centigrade. The reason being that there was too much haze and visibility was 'only' 4.5 km when 5.0 km is required for VFR (visual flight rules) flying. 3 hours driving and 40 quid in petrol. Hey ho.
So after passing numerous trucks and then a whole lot more trucks on the M25 it got me thinking. How many efffing trucks are there on this road?
So I got counting (as sad as that is).
Over the next 30 mins I counted how many trucks passed me going the other way over 1 mile stretches of the motorway. 51 was the average. Given the M25 is 117 miles in length you could hypothetically extrapolate that number to arrive at the conclusion that if I were to count all trucks going the other way whilst I drove the entire route of the M25 I would possibly pass 5,967 trucks going the other way. Hypothesising further you could say that on average there would be an identical amount of trucks going in the same direction as you as there are passing past you. That makes for 11,934 trucks on the M25 at any given time during the day.
Little wonder I thought there were a lot of them.
Life has resorted to counting trucks.
Someone shoot me.
Monday, 18 April 2011
Monday - April 18 - Its all relative
Reading today, as I do, the Sydney Morning Herald I
came across this article.....
Petrol prices hit 30-month highs as Easter looms
Petrol prices at 30-month highs continue to place pressure on motorists' budgets, with no respite expected for the Easter break.
Commsec economist Savanth Sebastian says fuel prices are unlikely to improve for motorists in the lead-up to Easter.
Data from the Australian Institute of Petroleum (AIP) released today showed the national average national price of unleaded petrol rose by 0.7 cents a litre to 144.6 cents a litre in the week ending Sunday
Well fellow Australians consider yourself half lucky.....over here in the UK your stock standard no-frills unleaded petrol costs anywhere form £ 1.37 to £1.46 depending on where you fill up. Fill up at a motorway service centre and you will be paying the latter price. As I did on the weekend just gone. What is it with the male gender that runs the petrol tank to vapour before filling up?
£1.46.!!!!...at current exchange rates that's equivalent to paying AUD$ 2.27....so 144.6 cents in Sydney versus 227.0 in the UK?
Sounds fair.
Oh! And note to self.
Never kid yourself that you know absolutely anything about a computer printer.
Mindset at 7.46 am '' mmm paper feeder seems broken...this shouldn't be too hard to fix ''
Mindset at 8.53 am '' sod that...hello ebay computer printer sales''
Sunday - April 17
Rape seed field - Henley-on-Thames.
Take a trip through the English countryside in Spring and you will undoubtedly come across fields and fields of bright yellow flowering plants. Known as Rapeseed.
Some facts - Wikipedia (copyright)
1. Rapeseed was the third leading source of vegetable oil in the world in 2000.
2. Processing of rapeseed for oil production provides rapeseed animal meal as a by-product. The by-product is a high-protein animal feed, competitive with soya
4. "Total loss" chain and bar oil for chainsaws have been developed which are typically 70% or more canola/rapeseed oil. These lubricants are claimed to be less harmful to the environment and less hazardous to users than traditional mineral oil products,[6] although they are currently typically 2-5x more expensive
5. Rapeseed oil is used in the manufacture of biodiesel for powering motor vehicles
The sht you learn when you have the time
Wednesday - April 13
Due to a small technical hitch (ie; leaving not one but both camera's at a friend's home, the following four days are a collection of some of my favourite photo's taken by by moi over the years)
Atoll - Tonga . South Pacific.
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Tuesday - April 12 Forrest Gump day
Start the day with a 55 min power walk through Richmond Park
Home for a quick breakfast, check the markets, and then think about a bike ride along the Thames to Windsor
Pass a Palace along the way...
Hampton Court Palace
Cross a few bridges...
Hampton Bridge
Surely that's an undercoat ?!?
Cycle past a few houseboats....
A gator or two....
...oh OK just kidding...
A couple of locks....
(click on the photo twice and you can read it)
And finally arrive at Windsor....
home to Windsor Castle
and the second best school in the world...Eton
21.5 km as the crow flies
45.2 km as the river flows
2 hours and 25 mins on a bike
36 mins on the train back
Monday, 11 April 2011
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Sunday - April 10
A 14km walk through quintessential English countryside in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire
The ubiquitous red telephone box
Grittleton
Morning light catches the laundry.
Castle Combe
Strangers rest and catch the view
Wotton Hill
Outside of Wotton-under-the-edge.
Kinbley Knoll
Gloucestershire
Saturday - April 9
A day spent at a the Royal Photographic Society HQ's in Bath doing a creative photograph workshop.
Enroute to Grittleton via Castle Combe.
Friday April 8
Kingston Rd. Richmond. 7.25 am
A morning jog past a doorway and memories stirred of a childhood where morning break involved sipping milk through a straw from a quart of milk with a silver tin foil top.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
..and to think I thought I had too much time on my hands
11.17 am. Thursday. April 7. Thames River tow path. Walton-upon-Thames.
Topiary gone mad.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Heathrow at Richmond
As picturesque as the local area is you cannot escape the fact that Richmond-upon-Thames is smack under the flight path. So as my morning trundle along the tow path beside the Thames was disrupted by yet another plane it got me thinking. What is Heathrow all about? Here are some facts.
1. Despite local claims to the contrary it is not the busiest airport in the world. That title lies with Atlanta which has more aircraft ''movement'' than any other. Heathrow comes in a lowly 13th. The top 7 airports based on aircraft movement (1 landing and take off ) are all based in the USA with Beijing breaking the pattern coming in 8th.
2. Heathrow is not even the busiest by passenger movements. It comes in 4th. Superseded by Atalanta at the top then Beijing and Chicago.
3. Where Heathrow tops the list is busiest airport by international passenger traffic. A clear 5 million passengers clear of second place which is Paris (40,239,000 versus 35,526,000)
4. Cargo? Forget it. Heathrow is 16th in the world in terms of total tonnage. Memphis is a clear leader there and I'm guessing (without looking) that is must be the hub for either Fedex or UPS.
5. With two airstrips running parallel to each other at Heathrow, air traffic control has the stated goal to land 38-40 per hour on each.
6. Busiest air route? Heathrow doesn't get a mention until 37th (Heathrow to JFK in New York). Tokyo to Sapporo is first by a long way. Then Seoul to Jeju (eh???) followed by Tokyo to Fukuoka and rounding out the top 4 is the Sydney to Melbourne route.
7. There is supposedly a curfew from 11pm to 6 am at Heathrow so it got me wondering then why a Cathay Pacific flight was seemingly about to park itself on my roof at 4.45am.
British Airports politely informed me that yes there is a curfew but there are 18 ''night flight'' allowances made of which 17 land between 4.30 am and 6 am and the other between 11 and midnight.
8. So then it got me thinking wouldn't it be nice not to have an airport. There are in fact 5 countries in the world that don't have one. Liechtenstein, Andorra, Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco. Remember that for your next trivia night.
The sht you learn when you have the time.
Wednesday - April 6
Two ingredients for a top day ahead.......
- Max. Day(°C)21Sunrise 06:23
- Min. WedNight(°C)9Sunset 19:41
Wednesday
Although it may start rather cloudy in some areas, the cloud will become well broken during the morning. This will leave a fine quite sunny and warm afternoon.
Wednesday night
A fine quite warm evening will be followed by a dry mostly clear night. A mild night with light winds.
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